The difference between fork(), vfork(), exec() and clone()
In Linux system programming, , , , and are system calls for process control, but their purposes and behaviors differ.1. fork()is used to create a new process, called the child process, which is a copy of the parent process. It copies all memory space, open file descriptors, and other resources from the parent process. Both the parent and child processes resume execution from the instruction immediately following the call.Example:2. vfork()is also used to create a child process, but it differs from . The child process created by shares the parent process's address space (without immediately copying the entire address space). The child process runs first, and the parent process is scheduled to run only after the child calls or . is primarily used when the child process is expected to call or soon, to avoid unnecessary address space copying.Example:3. exec()The family of functions is used to execute a new program within the current process. It replaces the current process's address space with that of the new program, but the process ID remains unchanged. is commonly called after or to run the new program in the child process.Example:4. clone()is a more flexible way to create processes compared to . It allows the caller to specify which resources are shared between the parent and child processes, such as file descriptors and address space. By passing different flags, it can achieve behaviors similar to , , or threads (lightweight processes).Example:These system calls are foundational to the operating system and are crucial. I hope these explanations and examples will help you understand the distinctions between them.